I decided to watch a few minutes of this film simply to see Tommy Lee Jones, whom I begrudgingly like as an actor. Instead, I watched the film all the way through because how to treat Japan after World War II has always been a topic that was difficult for me to reconcile.
The one criticism of the film is that I'm old enough -- barely -- to remember General Douglas MacArthur, and while I liked Tommy Lee Jones in the film, he was playing Tommy Lee Jones, not Douglas MacArthur.
What made the film successful in my view -- although it was not a critical or financial success -- were the two stories that were parallel in the film: the decision on how to treat Emperor Hirohito (retain or hang for war crimes), while the man perhaps most responsible for the decision -- relived in flashbacks his romance with a Japanese woman before the war (and incidentally, that man -- General Bonner Fellers -- was real). The film without the two stories would have been uninteresting to me.
The power of the film is demonstrated by this film. Bonner Fellers comes off as a really good guy, while in real life he later became a member of the John Birch Society.
Matthew Fox is excellent as Fellers.
So in my view, this is a very good film, despite Tommy Lee Jones looking and sounding nothing like MacArthur. But if you're younger than me (and you almost certainly are, that probably won't matter.
The one criticism of the film is that I'm old enough -- barely -- to remember General Douglas MacArthur, and while I liked Tommy Lee Jones in the film, he was playing Tommy Lee Jones, not Douglas MacArthur.
What made the film successful in my view -- although it was not a critical or financial success -- were the two stories that were parallel in the film: the decision on how to treat Emperor Hirohito (retain or hang for war crimes), while the man perhaps most responsible for the decision -- relived in flashbacks his romance with a Japanese woman before the war (and incidentally, that man -- General Bonner Fellers -- was real). The film without the two stories would have been uninteresting to me.
The power of the film is demonstrated by this film. Bonner Fellers comes off as a really good guy, while in real life he later became a member of the John Birch Society.
Matthew Fox is excellent as Fellers.
So in my view, this is a very good film, despite Tommy Lee Jones looking and sounding nothing like MacArthur. But if you're younger than me (and you almost certainly are, that probably won't matter.